🏆 Competing to Win: Risk Mitigation Strategies

[Elif Özaksu]

💰 Is It Possible to Win by Discounting?​

Have you ever seen a salesperson try to win by offering a discount? While this strategy might be effective when selling a car or a house, it doesn't always work in complex technical sales. In fact, it can sometimes be a red flag for potential customers and do more harm than good.

🔍 What Are Customers Looking For?​

When selling large and specialized automation projects, you typically deal with professional buyers, project managers, engineers, and end-users. Their decision-making process isn't as simple as "pick the cheapest integrator." Instead, they evaluate various factors that indicate what kind of situation they'll face with each integrator option in the future. Their goal is to maximize the probability of project success while spending the company's money wisely. Making a decision based solely on price can be dangerous, as the consequences of choosing the wrong supplier can be significant.

🛡️ Who Is the Lowest-Risk Option?​

In industrial automation, customers don't just pick the lowest-priced qualified option. They choose the company they perceive as having the lowest overall project risk. Behind every competitive proposal is an implicit question: "With whom am I least likely to regret signing this purchase order?"

Therefore, for integrators and OEMs, winning competitive bids often involves more than demonstrating technical capability and offering a competitive price. These are often minimum requirements just to stay in the conversation.

Winning is often the result of systematically demonstrating that your company is the safest choice. This is especially true for large capital expenditures where risks are high and mistakes can have significant economic or safety consequences.

❓ What's Evaluated Beyond Price?​

🛠️ Technical Competence: Can You Actually Do It?

The customer's first question is: "Does this company have the necessary capabilities and experience to succeed on my project?" Technical competence is often the first and most fundamental criterion in any bidding situation. If you can't show what you do (and a competitor can), you've lost significant ground. Fortunately, demonstrating technical competence is relatively straightforward. Case studies of successful projects using the desired technologies or involving a similar process can provide strong evidence that your organization possesses the necessary capabilities and experience.

For example, if you're asked to develop a custom vision inspection system, instead of telling the customer you have "extensive vision experience," it would be far more convincing to show three to five examples of current vision systems your organization has successfully designed and implemented. Proof always outweighs assertion, and these examples convey something important to the buyer: "This isn't our first rodeo. We've already done this successfully, and you won't be paying us to figure out the core technology for the first time on your project." Testimonials from satisfied customers and endorsements from technology partners can further strengthen this message.

So, technical competence is a critical first step. It shows your company is qualified to play the game. However, there are many technically competent integrators and OEMs competing for the business, so you'll still need to work hard to stand out from the crowd. Proving you're capable is often necessary, but not always sufficient to win.

🗣️ Communication: Will You Be Difficult to Work With?

The customer's next question is: "What will it be like to work with this company?" Beyond technical competence, project managers and end-users want to work with a company they believe will be responsive, reliable, and easy to work with. The preliminary experience during the proposal process serves as a preview of what it will be like to work with your organization after the purchase order is signed.

If your organization is difficult to reach, takes several days to respond to emails, or regularly misses commitments, technical competence means very little. Even worse, if a bidder makes promises during the sales process and repeatedly fails to deliver on them, the customer will likely wonder: "Is this what it will be like to work with them once we award them the project?"

The good news is that this also creates a significant opportunity to differentiate yourself. Be responsive, communicate proactively and regularly, take the time to educate the customer when needed, set clear expectations, and most importantly: KEEP YOUR PROMISES.

The customer experience during the proposal process, when done well, can become a real "wow" factor. An integrator or OEM that communicates well and delivers on its commitments provides the customer with evidence that future obstacles will be addressed rather than ignored.

Admittedly, many integrators and OEMs place a high value on technological expertise and engineering excellence, believing that technical superiority is the key to success, while viewing customer experience as a secondary priority. This can create a surprisingly large differentiation opportunity. You might not be the only company that can build the system, but you can be the company the customer genuinely enjoys working with, and that has meaningful value.

🚀 Execution: Do You Have a Controlled Method for Doing This?

The next question is: "How does this company plan to complete this project?" Customers don't just care about what you can do. They also care about how you plan to execute the work. Bidders who can clearly communicate the processes, standards, and methodologies they use to support successful project execution can gain a serious advantage in a competitive situation and significantly reduce anxiety for the customer. This opens a window into how your organization operates. It helps answer a critical question: "Do you have systematic processes to control project risk, or does your engineering department operate closer to controlled chaos?"

The proposal stage is a great opportunity to offer your customers a preview of your methodology. Show how you approach requirements development, design reviews, testing, documentation, commissioning, or other relevant parts of the project. Show where your controls are to catch errors before they become expensive problems. Not sharing a methodology doesn't inherently hurt you. But showing the customer exactly how you intend to mitigate execution risk can put you above competitors who simply promise they'll "get the job done."

This becomes especially important when a project involves a significant safety element or its primary purpose is safety-related. In these cases, attention to detail is critical. By showing examples of the documentation, procedures, testing practices, and internal standards you use to design and validate safety-critical systems, you can provide a meaningful advantage to your organization. You're not just telling the customer that you take safety seriously.